What is prepaid and post paid?

[Carnotaurus]

Can anyone tell me the different?

 

[mogelijk]

Prepaid means you pay your bill in advance; postpaid means that you are billed for your payment at the end of the month, after you have received the service.

T-Mobile has the same individual plans for postpaid available as prepaid, in addition prepaid has a $30 plan (100 minutes talk, unlimited text, unlimited data throttled after the first 5 GB). Family plans are only available postpaid, as are discounted rates.

Prepaid is a bit cheaper as the taxes are built in (you only pay sales tax, if applicable, and possibly a $1 or less e911 fee depending on your state). On postpaid you get data roaming and tethering that aren't included with prepaid -- though you can also get overages (such as using too much data while roaming).

Hope this helps.

 

[kate]

In addition to the post from mogelijk:

Prepaid is often used to describe phones with no contract. When you don't have a contract you pay full price for the phone.

Post paid can refer to contract phones. You receive a discount on the phone, but are locked into a contract, usually for 2 years.

 

[Carnotaurus]

Kate

I'm with T-mobile so I take it there is no post paid?

 

[SEMIJim]

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[SEMIJim]

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[mogelijk]

I thought T-Mobile didn't do that kind of thing anymore? It's my understanding you can buy a phone from them, on a 0% interest loan, but it's not tied to any service plan you might take. If I understand correctly: You can cancel your plan while retaining the device--you just have to finish paying for the device, just as with any other loan.

Jim

My understanding is that if you buy from T-Mobile it is no-contract through the Simple Choice plans, but if you buy from a retailer (Best Buy, for example) then you do get a contract. My understanding is that the way retailers are paid for activating the phones they sell requires that customers sign a contract.

 

[Crashdamage]

I'm with T-mobile so I take it there is no post paid?

Of course there is postpaid. There are no contracts if you deal directly with T-Mobile.

 

[Deleted User]

Also, the $70 post paid plan includes 2.5 gigs of wifi tethering. And, postpaid plans include data roaming (although I don't know the number, I believe it is small). Also, postpaid includes conditional call forwarding, which you need it you want to use Google Voice as your voice nail.

I started out as prepaid and switched to postpaid. They do have to run a credit check if you get postpaid.

 

[mogelijk]

Also, the $70 post paid plan includes 2.5 gigs of wifi tethering. And, postpaid plans include data roaming (although I don't know the number, I believe it is small). Also, postpaid includes conditional call forwarding, which you need it you want to use Google Voice as your voice nail.

I started out as prepaid and switched to postpaid. They do have to run a credit check if you get postpaid.

Apparently you can opt out of the credit check, if you wish, you just have to pay a deposit (I believe the deposit is roughly the cost of one month of service).

 

[SEMIJim]

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[aurora40]

Can anyone tell me the different?

It's been fairly well explained now. But just to put it a little differently, with prepaid, you control how much money the carrier can take from you. With postpaid, you get a bill after they decided what you used. Postpaid usually implies a contract as well, but not always (T-Mobile for example).

If you put $30 on a prepaid account, it may turn out you didn't understand the terms, didn't understand the usage, etc... The carrier may burn through your $30 faster than you expected. But you will never be out more than the $30 (though you may have no minutes left for the rest of the month/etc).

If you have a postpaid account with $30/month service, it may turn out you didn't understand the terms, usage, etc. The carrier may just let you keep on going well past the services that come with your $30/month plan. And at the end of the month you get a phone bill for $150 of stuff you already used.

 

[runtmms]

It's been fairly well explained now. But just to put it a little differently, with prepaid, you control how much money the carrier can take from you. With postpaid, you get a bill after they decided what you used. Postpaid usually implies a contract as well, but not always (T-Mobile for example).

If you put $30 on a prepaid account, it may turn out you didn't understand the terms, didn't understand the usage, etc... The carrier may burn through your $30 faster than you expected. But you will never be out more than the $30 (though you may have no minutes left for the rest of the month/etc).

If you have a postpaid account with $30/month service, it may turn out you didn't understand the terms, usage, etc. The carrier may just let you keep on going well past the services that come with your $30/month plan. And at the end of the month you get a phone bill for $150 of stuff you already used.

I think this is accurate. Or more simply... With post paid you get billed for what you used which could be more than expected. With prepaid you pay in advance for your service - they can't come back and charge more (if you've exceeded your plan your service could be throttled or cut off.)

 

[jhawkkw]

I think this is accurate. Or more simply... With post paid you get billed for what you used which could be more than expected. With prepaid you pay in advance for your service - they can't come back and charge more (if you've exceeded your plan your service could be throttled or cut off.)

If you go over your minutes on the 30 dollar plan, they do charge you 10 cents per minute if you have funds already in your account or the next time you fill up. Have had it happen before so I have first hand experience.

 

[aurora40]

If you go over your minutes on the 30 dollar plan, they do charge you 10 cents per minute if you have funds already in your account or the next time you fill up. Have had it happen before so I have first hand experience.

Yes, if you put $150 on your account, you can end up with a $150 phone bill for the month. But if you want a $30/month bill, you can put only $30 on your account every month. You may only be able to use your phone the first week of every month, but there are no surprises on what your costs are.

 

[runtmms]

True. I wasn't thinking about the case where you have your account loaded up with extra funds.

 

[jhawkkw]

True. I wasn't thinking about the case where you have your account loaded up with extra funds.

Yeah, in the other cases where minutes and texts are unlimited and data have soft caps that lead to throttling when passed. So the only ones that are really affected by overages are the 2 30 dollar plans.

 

[SEMIJim]

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[skinien]

I don't think this was mentioned...

T-Mobile postpaid customers have network priority over prepaid. That means in high congestion areas, even if you have full signal, you may have a harder time getting data because all of the postpaid customers have dibs on the bandwidth.